I can't speak for the Devs but I would not be expecting an updated Dokuwiki until after Ubuntu 10.04 is released (April 2010). (Unless you do it yourself as Liraz suggested). Alon & Liraz may correct me, but I would imagine a more recent version will be available once TKL begin using 10.04 as their basis. If Devs chose to produce an updated version before then they would also have to begin maintaining it for TKL appliances - to ensure that arising security concerns were addressed. This would involve them either backporting security fixes themselves, or providing some other method of updating the software (perhaps though their repo).

Regardless it would be lots of work. If the Devs start doing that, then what about other software that is included in any given TKL appliance? If you are using Dokuwiki then I could understand why you may want this, but it is just not feasible for the Devs to constantly be updating software for all the TKL appliances. If you consider the amount of effort required just to keep all the software of a single TKL appliance up to date with security patches (even if they don't upgrade the version) then imagine how much time and energy it would take just to maintain all of the the current TKL releases.

Now the guys are pretty good and they move pretty fast but I would imagine there'd be no chances of ever seeing a new appliance added to the range under that maintenance schedule!

Sorry I only just realised that it is a Debian package. What about pinning the update to the Squeeze/Sid repo rather than Lenny? That would mean that you could upgrade to Dokuwiki 0.0.20090214b-3 (same as the one you suggested Liraz) but still get updates via apt-get?

I had a quick look and it seems there is only one extra dependancy (which can't be fullfilled by Ubuntu) and thats libphp-simplepie (one other depend that you've obviously already dealt with is php-geshi).

Now I don't really completely know how repo pinning works, but if its possible to allow only the specified apps to access the Debian repo then there shouldn't be a problem with my suggestion should there? Or is there something I have overlooked or don't understand correctly?

Sid is named after the boy in Toy Story who will "break your toys". Its other name is Debian unstable. Packages in Sid don't get backported security fixes, they just get the latest versions of upstream + patches so it would probably be a terrible idea to configure your system to get automatic package upgrades from sid. Unless you're looking for an adventure!

Note that we do occasionally pin packages in TurnKey to the current version of Debian stable (Lenny), mostly when they're not supported in Ubuntu or its a really old version. In fact, that's exactly what we've done for DokuWiki. The version in Ubuntu Hardy is from 2007! The version in TurnKey is from Debian Lenny, and its pinned to Debian stable for security updates.

If Sylvain really wants the latest and greatest, he should try installing DokuWiki directly from the deb packages in sid. Either that, or installing from upstream. (even more work)

I know I refered to it as Squeeze/Sid but my understanding is that now it is named Squeeze (although some seem to still also call it Sid) it is now 'testing' (named Squeeze for v6.0 only) rather than 'unstable' (permanently Sid)? I know it hasn't been frozen yet and it still under heavy development, with some still considering it alpha. But I have also heard said that Debian 'testing' is as stable as many distros are on release - but I guess thats a matter of opinion?

Regardless I wasn't suggesting that TKL should or would do this and support it. I understand that once a user moves away from a default TKL appliance you can not provide the same level of support purely because of resources. I was just looking for a way to fulfill Sylvain's desires with a package that will still see some automated resolution of security issues. It sounds like my thoughts were not as sound as I may have suspected!

Now just for my own interest and learning - when a package is 'pinned' does that mean that no other packages will receive updates from that repo? I assume it must do or otherwise how do you stop other Ubuntu apps that also have later versions in Debian Lenny from updating? Is it possible to include different repos and have individual packages upgrade from their specificly designated repo?

JedMeister has again hit the nail on the end. Releasing new appliances can be a huge undertaking. To make things manageable we batch large parts of the process (e.g., development, QA, updating documentation). If we had enough resources anything would be possible of course, but it's really a matter of priorities. We could easily spend all of our time racing against upstream constantly releasing new versions of everything without getting anything else done. We don't believe that would make most of our users happy.

Right now we're working on major new features such as data migration and backup. Next will come support for Debian and 64-bit support, new appliances, etc. In the meantime, TurnKey appliances are fully customizable just like any other Ubuntu system. That's good because it's hard to make everyone happy all of the time.